The Harris and Trump Debate—Fact-Checked

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump went head-to-head on Tuesday evening in the first televised debate between the 2024 election candidates, who tackled questions on the economy, immigration, race, Israel and Ukraine.
Harris and Trump squared off in Philadelphia as both candidates aimed to win over undecided voters who will determine the outcome of the November presidential election in key battleground states.
With the dust settled for now, Newsweek’s Fact Check team has checked Trump and Harris’ claims and attacks.
The debate began with a discussion on economic plans, which stayed on course for the most part.
Kamala Harris: “Economists have said that Trump’s sales tax would actually result for middle-class families in about $4,000 more a year because of his policies and his ideas about what should be the backs of middle-class people paying for tax cuts for billionaires.”
This refers to plans to extend Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While analysis by the Tax Policy Center from 2017 found that higher-income households, would receive “larger average tax cuts as a percentage of after-tax income” and that the largest cuts, as a share of income, went to taxpayers in the 95th to 99th percentile, the bill would reduce taxes “on average for all income groups.”
Therefore, while analysis suggests that the greatest benefits of these cuts were seen in higher-income households, the tax cuts Harris talks about here would not be exclusively for the benefit of billionaires.
Harris’ claim about a $4,000 cost to families caused by a Trump sales tax is based on an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Center for American Progress (CAP), which said that Trump’s plans to increase tariffs on imported goods by 10 to 20 percent—60 percent on all imported goods from China—would amount to a $3,900 tax increase for middle-income families.
Other estimates, such as one from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, suggest the 20 percent tariff proposal would cost the typical American household just over $2,600 a year.
Trump: “They’ve left the tariffs on.”
Trump said that after he left office, an increase in tariffs on imported goods was kept in place by the Biden administration. This is accurate. The Biden administration kept tariffs imposed on Chinese imports that Trump introduced, as Newsweek has reported.
Trump “I had tariffs and yet I had no inflation.”
While the U.S. rate of inflation fell to nearly 0 percent during Trump’s presidency, this didn’t happen until two years after he announced tariffs against China. Inflation rose from lows of 0.1 percent in May 2020 to 1.4 percent at the start of the Biden presidency.
Trump: “We have inflation like very few people have ever seen before. Probably the worst in our nation’s history. We were at 21 percent.”

Trump said inflation reached 21 percent during the Biden-Harris administration. This isn’t true. Inflation reached a peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022. It has since fallen to 2.9 percent.
Harris: “Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression”
Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show unemployment peaked under Donald Trump at 14.8 percent in April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the highest rate since the BLS began recording monthly rates. At its worst, around one in four Americans were unemployed during the Great Depression.
However, Harris’ claim is that Trump “left” the worst unemployment rates. Unemployment was at 6.4 percent when Trump left office, so this claim is somewhat misleading.
Trump: “We handed them over a country where the economy and where the stock market was higher than it was before the pandemic came in.”
This is true. The Dow Jones, a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the U.S, recovered and exceeded pre-pandemic highs set under Trump by the time he left office. It has continued to grow under the Biden-Harris administration.
Trump: “But the only jobs they got were bounce-back jobs. These were jobs, bounce back.”
The claim here is that the only jobs the Biden administration created were jobs previously lost which isn’t true. Excluding roles refilled since the pandemic, 7.8 million new jobs have been added to the economy, according to BLS data.
Trump: “I was the only president ever China was paying us hundreds of billions [in tariffs] of dollars”
Asked about tariffs, Trump said his actions led to the U.S. Treasury recouping hundreds of billions of dollars, which isn’t right. The cost of tariffs is paid for by the importer, even if the tariff may make it more difficult for Chinese firms to trade.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures show that $242 billion in tariffs have been paid to the Treasury since 2018.
Harris: “Well, let’s be clear that the Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit, one of the highest we’ve ever seen in the history of America”
In 2018, the Trump administration oversaw the largest trade deficit of its 243-year history. After two years in office, it rose to a record $891.2 billion, The Washington Post reported.
Trump: “They have abortion in the ninth month… the previous governor of West Virginia…he said ‘the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby.’ In other words, we’ll execute the baby.”
Newsweek has debunked these false claims. There is no such thing as abortion after birth. This falsehood has been shared by conservatives for years.
Trump’s reference to the “previous governor of West Virginia” appears to actually be about the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, who made comments in 2019 that were widely misinterpreted to mean he supported abortions after birth. Northam’s comments were about what decisions physicians would make to support a mother if a nonviable fetus went past labor.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign outside of regular office hours.
Trump: “But her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is OK.”
Tim Walz has not said that abortion after the ninth month “is absolutely fine” or that “execution” after the baby is born “is OK.”
Trump was corrected by moderator Linsey Davis who said: “There is no state in this country where it’s legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
Harris: “And now in over 20 states, there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care. In one state it provides prison for life. Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest.”
A New York Times monitor reports that 22 states ban or restrict abortions at an earlier stage than the one set by Roe v. Wade. Many include no exceptions for rape and incest.
It’s not clear which state Harris is referring to when she mentions that defying abortion law there can carry a life sentence. In 2022, Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested and unlawfully charged with murder in Texas after using medication to induce an abortion 19 weeks into her pregnancy. The charges were dropped and Gonzalez sued Texas prosecutors and Starr County for over $1 million, CNN reported.

However, the arrest took place before Roe v. Wade was overturned. Newsweek has contacted a Kamala Harris representative for comment
Harris: “Under Donald Trump’s abortion bans… couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments.”
This may refer to a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court from February 2024, which said frozen embryos were the legal equivalent of children. The ruling led to a pause of in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. A bill was passed soon after by Alabama lawmakers that protected doctors, clinics and other health care personnel who provide IVF treatments from facing civil and criminal liability.
When the debate turned to immigration, Harris brought up the bipartisan border bill as Trump has been accused of encouraging Congressional Republicans to vote against it. This section of the debate descended into several unrelated topics. Here, is a selection of what was said, alongside claims the candidates made elsewhere on the topic.
Harris: “He will talk about windmills cause cancer”
Harris went off course as she answered a question on delays to immigration reform, talking about Trump rallies, saying supporters left his rallies and sharing claims she said he’d made at these events.
The claim about windmills is based on a comment he made in 2019, claiming “they say” the noise from them “causes cancer.” There is no evidence to support this claim.
Trump: “People don’t leave my rallies”
There is documentary evidence of people leaving Trump rallies before they finished, such as his May 2024 rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.
Trump: “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country.”
As Trump tried to pivot back to immigration, he repeated an unfounded allegation about migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating locals’ pets. As debate host David Muir correctly pointed out, there are no credible reports of animals being injured or abused by immigrants.
Trump: “But when you look at what she’s done to our country and when you look at these millions and millions of people that are pouring into our country monthly where it’s I believe 21 million people, not the 15 that people say.”
This claim came up during Trump’s answer on his economic record. Statistics from the CBP show there have been 8.2 million encounters on the southwest border since January 2021. Figures for people that weren’t stopped—referred to by some as “gotaways”—may bring that total closer to 10 million.
National encounters are more than 10 million but nowhere near the figures that Trump suggests here. Encounters may also include multiple attempts to cross by a single person.
Trump: “Do you know that crime in Venezuela and crime in countries all over the world is way down? You know why? Because they’ve taken their criminals off the street and they’ve given them to her to put into our country.”
Recent analyses by FactCheck.org and PolitiFact indicate that there is no credible evidence that Venezuela is moving its criminal population to the U.S. Criminologists speaking to PolitiFact said reduction in crime in Venezuela was due to a mixture of migration, economic downturn and extrajudicial killings.
Harris: “Understand, this is someone who has openly said he would terminate, I’m quoting, terminate the Constitution of the United States.”
This was based on comments Trump made in December 2022, pushing the baseless claim that he lost the 2020 election due to widespread voter fraud.
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on December 3, 2022. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”
Trump later attempted to walk back his statement, writing via Truth Social on December 5 that: “The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES.”
“What I said was that when there is ‘MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION,’ as has been irrefutably proven in the 2020 Presidential Election, steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG,” Trump added. “Only FOOLS would disagree with that and accept STOLEN ELECTIONS. MAGA!”
The vice president was pressed on how her views on topics such as fracking, decriminalization of undocumented migrants, and automatic buyback of assault weapons. The question led Harris to bring up Trump’s background too
Harris: “But in particular, let’s talk about fracking because we’re here in Pennsylvania. I made that very clear in 2020. I will not ban fracking.”
Harris has said that she made her position on fracking clear during a 2020 vice presidential debate. However, most of these comments were about Joe Biden’s position that he would not ban fracking.
Then Vice President Mike Pence said Biden and Harris had both “repeatedly committed to abolishing fossil fuel and banning fracking” to which Harris replied, “That’s not true.”
Trump: “I wasn’t given $400 million. I wish I was. My father was a Brooklyn builder. Brooklyn, Queens. And a great father and I learned a lot from him. But I was given a fraction of that, a tiny fraction, and I built it into many, many billions of dollars.”
The former president was responding here to a claim made by Harris that he had been given $400 million from his family, in contrast to her background.
A 2018 New York Times report alleged that Trump received $413 million (in today’s dollars) from his father’s real estate empire in the 1990s. Trump’s legal representatives said allegations of fraud and tax evasion attached to the calculations were “100 percent false and highly defamatory.”
Trump: “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”
As reported by CNN, Harris previously said she supported taxpayer-funded transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.
The candidates were asked about how they would negotiate with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas to release hostages and end of civilian casualties in Gaza. The question led to claims about Harris’ attitude toward Israel and Trump’s attitude toward autocratic leaders.
Trump: “She wouldn’t even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers.”

This is half-true. Harris was not in Washington, D.C, when Netanyahu was scheduled to address a joint session of Congress in July this year. As reported by The Guardian among others, Harris was at a public event at a college sorority in Indiana, however, not a “sorority party of hers” as Trump put it.
She met with Netanyahu later that week.
The debate’s turn on Ukraine included claims from Trump about the death toll in Ukraine and Harris’ interactions with President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the war.
Trump: “People being killed by the millions.”
As Newsweek has recently reported, there is no data to support that “millions” of people have been killed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Suppose you were to combine the loss estimates on both sides, including deaths and injuries of soldiers and civilians, with the consideration that these are likely undercounted. In that case, you might reach a figure near 1 million lives lost or otherwise impacted by injury since the invasion.
However, Trump’s claim is quite clear that there would be a million people “living right now,” a number that does not appear to be supported by any of the evidence compiled by researchers and intelligence officials.
Trump: “They sent her in to negotiate with Zelensky and Putin. And she did and the war started three days later.”
This is not true. Harris did not meet Putin. She met with Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference in the days before the invasion to discuss American intelligence as Russia amassed troops at the Ukrainian border.
David Muir attempted to ask Kamala Harris about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, during which 13 service members were killed in an attack in Kabul. The vice president went on to speak about Trump’s record.
Harris: “He bypassed the Afghan government. He negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban. The negotiation involved the Taliban getting 5,000 terrorists, Taliban terrorists released.”
In 2020, the Trump administration negotiated a deal which saw 5,000 Taliban fighters freed in exchange for up to 1,000 Afghan government captives as part of a peace deal between the U.S. and the Talban.
In a statement at the time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the decision to release the prisoners was “unpopular” but would ultimately pave the way for the war in Afghanistan to end.
Harris: “And the president at the time invited the Taliban to Camp David.”
This is true. Trump announced in 2019 that Taliban leaders were due to travel to the U.S. ahead of a Camp David meeting, slated to secure an agreement to end the fighting in Afghanistan. However, following the death of a U.S. soldier in a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul, the president said he pulled out of the meeting.
Comments Trump made to the National Association of Black Journalists about Kamala Harris’ Jamaican and Indian heritage were brought up during the debate. The topic also brought up historical claims about Trump’s time as a property mogul.
Trump: “All I can say is I read where she was not Black, that she put out. And, I’ll say that. And then I read that she was Black.”
It’s not clear where Trump might have read that Harris said she was “not Black.” Harris has spoken at length about her mixed heritage, as the daughter of a Jamaican-born father and Indian-born mother. She has said that her mother deliberately raised her and her sister as Black because of how the world would see them. She also attended Howard University, an HBCU (historically Black colleges and university) in Washington, D.C.
In her 2019 autobiography, The Truths We Hold, Harris wrote about being raised with an appreciation and understanding of both Indian and Black culture.
“My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”
Harris: “He was investigated because he refused to rent property to Black families.”
As reported by The Associated Press, the Justice Department sued Trump and his father in 1973, for allegedly refusing to rent apartments in predominantly white buildings to Black tenants. It ended in a settlement.
Harris: “Let’s remember, this is the same individual who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young Black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five. Took out a full-page ad calling for their execution.”
In 1989, five Black teenagers were wrongly accused and convicted of the rape and assault of 28-year-old investment banker Trisha Meili while she was jogging in New York’s Central Park. Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise said they were coerced into giving false confessions by a prosecution spearheaded by Linda Fairstein, head of the sex crimes unit at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, before being convicted for crimes they did not commit.
Trump spent $85,000 on full-page ads in four of New York’s most popular newspapers—New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post and Newsday—with the headline, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE.”
After the Central Park Five were convicted on charges that included attempted murder, rape and assault and served sentences, ranging from six to 13 years in juvenile and, in Wise’s case, prison, serial rapist and convicted murder Matias Reyes came forward and confessed to having attacked Meili. DNA evidence backed up his claim. Wise, Santana, Richardson, McCray and Salaam were exonerated in 2002. They agreed to a $40 million settlement with New York City in 2014.
Despite this, in 2016, Trump continued to stand by his position, as Newsweek has previously reported.
Update 09/11/24, 7:00 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.